3 John 1

Today’s Passage: 3 John 1

The whole letter is here, and it is the shortest book in your Bible. An old man writes to a friend. He opens with as warm a line as any in Scripture, the beloved Gaius whom I love in the truth, and then prays for his health the way any of us would pray for a friend. He tells him what made him overjoyed: some brothers came through and reported that Gaius is walking in the truth, and the old man says he has no greater joy in this world than that. Then he commends him for a specific thing. Gaius has been taking in travelling missionaries he had never met, feeding them, and sending them on down the road with what they needed, and the elder tells him that this makes him a fellow worker for the truth itself. Then, for two verses, the letter goes cold. There is a man named Diotrephes who loves to be first. He will not accept the elder’s word, he spreads malicious talk about him, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and he throws out of the church anybody who wants to. Then the elder gives Gaius a rule a child could follow, do not imitate what is evil but what is good, and points at a third man, Demetrius, whom everybody speaks well of, including the truth. And then the note ends the way letters ended in that world: I would rather not do this with pen and ink, I hope to see you soon, peace to you, greet the friends there by name. Three men, one door, and the shortest book in the New Testament.

As you read, hold this: Three men are named in fourteen verses and all three are measured by one thing, whether they opened the door, because the truth moves on the hospitality of people who welcome strangers for the sake of the Name.

3 John 1:1–4 (BSB)

¹ The elder, To the beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth: ² Beloved, I pray that in every way you may prosper and enjoy good health, as your soul also prospers. ³ For I was overjoyed when the brothers came and testified about your devotion to the truth, in which you continue to walk. ⁴ I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

He does not sign his name. “The elder” is how an old man writes to someone who knows his voice and needs no introduction, and the church has always heard the apostle John in it. Then the first thing out of his pen is affection: “the beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth.” That word beloved is going to come three more times in fourteen verses, and it sets the temperature of the whole letter. Whatever hard thing he has to say later about Diotrephes, he says it inside a room already warm.

Then verse two, and we must slow down here, because this single sentence has probably been misused more than any other in the letter. “Beloved, I pray that in every way you may prosper (εὐοδόω) euodoō, pronounced yoo-oh-DOH-oh. Strong's G2137, to have a good road, to have things go well, to prosper. Euodoō is a lovely, concrete word, made of eu, meaning well or good, and hodos, meaning a road or a way. To be euodoō-ed is literally to be given a good journey, to have the road go well under your feet, and only by extension does it come to mean to succeed or to prosper. Paul uses it of his own hope that somehow, by God’s will, the way might at last be opened for him to travel to Rome, and of money set aside in proportion to how a man’s week has gone. There is no gold in the word, and no guarantee anywhere in it. Feel how different that is from the way the English word prosper now lands on us. John is not asking that his friend be made rich. He is asking, in the language of the road, that Gaius find the going good, that the way ahead be open and smooth for him, in his body and in his affairs, as it evidently already is in his soul. And notice that the road is the very image at the center of this whole letter. Men are on the road for the sake of the Name. Gaius is sending them on their way. The elder’s greatest joy is that his children are walking. Even his prayer for a friend’s welfare comes out of his mouth as a wish about a journey. Ask God for a good road, and leave the choice of terrain to Him. and enjoy good health, as your soul also prospers.” Read it for what it plainly is. It is the ordinary opening wish of a first-century letter, the kind of line that appears in thousands of surviving papyrus letters between friends and family members who had no idea they were writing anything anyone would ever read. A man wrote to his brother and said, I hope you are well in body as in soul, the way we say I hope this finds you well. What makes John’s version beautiful is not that it is a formula but that he means it, and that he uses the friend’s spiritual health as the measuring stick for everything else. He wants Gaius to do as well in body and in circumstance as he is already doing in his soul. That is a very high compliment. And it is exactly the opposite of a promise. It is a wish, made by a man who could not guarantee any of it, on behalf of a friend he loved. Nowhere does this verse teach that God has bound Himself to make believers healthy or well off, and it was never given as a formula to be claimed. The same apostle wrote from exile on a prison island. Paul was left with a thorn God would not remove and a friend so ill he nearly died. To take a friend’s warm greeting and turn it into a contract with God is to do violence to a kind old man’s letter, and it has left many sincere people believing that sickness or poverty is a mark of God’s displeasure. It is not. Let the verse be what it is: love, wishing a friend well, and quietly assuming that the soul is the part that matters most.

Then the reason for his gladness: “I was overjoyed when the brothers came and testified (μαρτυρέω) martyreō, pronounced mar-too-REH-oh. Strong's G3140, to bear witness, to testify, to be well spoken of. Martyreō means to bear witness, to give testimony to what you have actually seen, and it belongs to the courtroom before it belongs to anything else. It is the ancestor of our word martyr, and the road from one meaning to the other is the whole story of the early church: so many witnesses were killed for their testimony that the word for witness became the word for one who dies. John loves this word. He uses it more than any other New Testament writer, in his Gospel of John the Baptist, of the works of Jesus, of the Father, of the Spirit, and of himself as the one who saw and wrote it down. Here it turns up three times in fourteen verses, and look at who does the testifying. The travelling brothers testify about Gaius. They testify to the church about his love. And in the last of the three, the truth itself testifies about Demetrius. That is not a decoration. In this little letter, a man’s life is placed in the witness box and examined, and the verdict is delivered by people who have watched him up close and by the truth he claims to hold. It is worth asking, quietly and without panic, what the honest testimony about your own life would be if the people who have stayed in your house were called to give it. about your devotion to the truth, in which you continue to walk.” Some of the travelling men had come back through and reported on him, and notice what they reported. Not his generosity in the abstract, not his standing in the town, but his devotion to the truth and the fact that he keeps on walking in it. And then the line that ought to be carved over every Christian parent’s door and every pastor’s desk: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” No greater joy. Weigh that. Here is a man who had walked with Jesus of Nazareth, seen the transfiguration, stood at the cross, looked into an empty tomb, and been given a revelation of the throne of heaven, and he says the greatest joy still available to him in this world is news that the people he led to Christ are still walking. Not that they have arrived. Not that they have become impressive. Walking. If that is the greatest joy of a man like that, it is a safe thing for us to want most for the people we love.

3 John 1:5–8 (BSB)

⁵ Beloved, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, and especially since they are strangers to you. ⁶ They have testified to the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. ⁷ For they went out on behalf of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. ⁸ Therefore we ought to support such men, so that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

Here is the heart of the letter, and the first word of it is the word faithful. Not generous, not warm, not hospitable, though he is all three. Faithful, which is the word you use of a servant who can be trusted with the household while the master is away. Gaius has been given a stewardship, and the stewardship is his front door, and he has been reliable with it. Then the elder adds the detail that makes it costly: “and especially since they are strangers to you.” Anyone will feed a friend. Gaius has been taking in men he had never laid eyes on, on the strength of nothing but the Name they carried, giving them his food, his roof, his time, and his household’s safety. In that world a stranger at the door could be anything. He did it anyway, and the elder singles it out for praise precisely because it was harder.

Then, “You will do well to send them on (προπέμπω) propempō, pronounced pro-PEM-poh. Strong's G4311, to send forward, to equip and escort a traveler on his way. Propempō means to send forward, and in the New Testament it is nearly a technical term for the church’s care of travelling workers. It does not mean waving from the gate. It means provisioning the journey: food for the road, money for passage, a fresh cloak, perhaps a companion to walk the first miles and see the traveller safely onto the right road. Paul uses it when he asks a church to help him on to the next place, and when he tells Titus to send two men off with everything they need so that they lack nothing. Now hear the elder’s standard again, laid on top of it. Do this in a manner worthy of God. Ask what it would look like to pack a bag for a man as if the King Himself were checking it, and you have the sense of it. And notice how ordinary the actual work is. Bread, coins, a bed, a clean tunic, directions, a walk to the crossroads. There is nothing spiritual-looking about any of it, and John says it is how a person becomes a fellow worker for the truth. So do not despise the small, physical, unglamorous things you can do for those who serve. In this letter they are not the fringe of the mission. They are the mission’s legs. their way in a manner worthy of God.” That last phrase is the standard the whole thing is measured by, and it is a very high one. Not in a manner worthy of what they deserve, or of what you can spare, or of what will keep people from talking. In a manner worthy of God, as though you were outfitting a guest of His, because you are.

Then the reason: “For they went out on behalf of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.” Two things there are worth stopping over. First, “the Name,” standing alone, with nothing added. Everyone knew whose. It is the way the earliest believers spoke of Jesus when no further explanation was needed, and there is something moving in the bare reverence of it. These men had not gone out on behalf of a program or a party or their own reputations. They went out for the Name. Second, they took nothing from unbelievers. That was a deliberate integrity, so that no pagan in any town could ever say the gospel had been peddled to him for a price, and it is a discipline the church has not always kept since. But it had a consequence, and the consequence lands squarely on Gaius: if the believers do not support these men, no one will.

“Therefore we ought to support such men, so that we may be fellow workers for the truth.” That word therefore is doing real work. Because they will not take money from the world, we must supply them, and when we do, something remarkable happens to our status. We become co-workers. Not sponsors, not admirers, not the audience. Fellow workers, in the same labor, for the same truth. Gaius never left home. He is counted in with the men who did. There is no first and second class in this enterprise, and that ought to lift the head of every believer who has ever felt that the real work of God was being done elsewhere by better people.

"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." Hebrews 13:2 (BSB)

The writer there is thinking of Abraham at the oaks of Mamre, running out to meet three travellers in the heat of the day and pressing them to stay, not knowing who had come. That is the dignity God has quietly attached to an open door. You never know what you are letting in.

3 John 1:9–11 (BSB)

⁹ I have written to the church about this, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will not accept our instruction. ¹⁰ So if I come, I will call attention to his malicious slander against us. And unsatisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers and forbids those who want to do so, even putting them out of the church. ¹¹ Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

Now the shadow, and we should walk into it soberly, without making a monster out of the man. Notice first what is not said. Diotrephes is never accused of false doctrine. In the companion letter the danger was men who would not confess that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh, and John dealt with that severely. Here there is no heresy mentioned at all. The one thing laid to this man’s charge is that he loves to be first (φιλοπρωτεύω) philoprōteuō, pronounced fee-lo-pro-TYOO-oh. Strong's G5383, to love being first, to crave the top place. Philoprōteuō appears exactly once in the whole New Testament, right here, and John may well have made it up for the occasion. It is built from phileō, to love or be fond of, and prōtos, first. To philoprōteuō is to be a lover of the first place, to have an appetite for being at the head of things. Notice that the word does not describe an office he held or an action he performed. It describes an affection. The man’s problem was located in what he loved. He did not merely happen to end up in charge; he enjoyed it, wanted more of it, and organized his conduct around keeping it. That is what makes this the most quietly searching word in the letter, because it is a sin that requires no unusual wickedness at all, only an ordinary human heart left unchecked. Any of us can recognize the pull: the small pleasure of being consulted, of being the one who decides, of being spoken of well, of not being contradicted in front of others. Nobody sets out to be a Diotrephes. He is simply what that appetite becomes after twenty years of being fed. The mercy in having his name written down here is that we get to see the end of the road before we have walked it. . That is the root, and everything else in the sentence grows out of it. He will not accept the elder’s instruction, because accepting instruction means someone else is above you. He talks maliciously about the old man, because the quickest way to stay on top is to bring the other man down. He refuses to welcome the travelling brothers, because visiting teachers with apostolic backing would eclipse him in his own church. And he forbids those who want to welcome them, and puts them out, because a rival’s supporters are a threat that must be removed. Read the progression again and you will see how ordinary it is. It is not devil worship. It is a man who wanted the top place badly enough to hurt people for it.

Notice, too, how the elder responds. He does not launch a campaign, and he does not tell Gaius to fight the man. He says plainly that if he comes, he will call attention to what has been said, which is what a responsible overseer does with slander: he brings it out where everyone can look at it, rather than letting it work in the dark. That is honest and it is measured. And then he turns immediately away from the argument and gives Gaius one simple rule to live by: “do not imitate what is evil, but what is good.” The word is about copying a pattern, and it is exactly the right counsel, because in a small congregation with a forceful man at the center, the real danger is not that people will be persuaded by his position. It is that they will start to copy his manner, and answer arrogance with arrogance, and shut their own doors in return. The elder heads that off. Keep doing good. Keep opening the door. Do not become him in order to defeat him.

And the reason he gives goes deep: “The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.” That is not a scale on which we weigh a life and see which way it tips. It is a statement about origin. Doing good comes from somewhere; it is evidence of a life that has its source in God. A settled pattern of doing harm is evidence of a man who has never actually seen Him, whatever position he holds in a church. That is severe, and John means it to be. But hear the way the Lord Himself put it to men who were jockeying for the top place, because it is the exact medicine for this exact disease.

"But it shall not be this way among you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all." Mark 10:43–44 (BSB)

Whoever wants to be first. The Lord does not pretend that the appetite is rare. He takes it as given, and then He redirects it in the only direction where it can do no harm. You want the first place? Very well: it is at the bottom, with a towel. Diotrephes wanted to be first in a church whose Head had washed feet in an upper room and told them to do the same. That is the whole tragedy of verse nine in one sentence.

3 John 1:12–14 (BSB)

¹² Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true. ¹³ I have many things to write to you, but I would prefer not to do so with pen and ink. ¹⁴ Instead, I hope to see you soon and speak with you face to face. Peace to you. The friends here send you greetings. Greet each of our friends there by name.

And now the third man, and what a relief he is after verse ten. Demetrius is very likely the one carrying this letter, which is why he is commended in it: a traveller in that world needed someone’s word to open a door, and the elder is giving him his. Look at the three witnesses stacked up for him. “From everyone,” which is the testimony of ordinary people who have watched him live, and that is worth more than most of us admit. “And from the truth itself,” which is the deeper thing, meaning that his life and the gospel he professes agree; you can hold the man up against the message and see no gap. And then, “We also testify for him, and you know that our testimony is true,” the old apostle putting his own name to it. Notice that the letter has now weighed all three men in the same scales. Gaius, who opened his door to strangers, is a fellow worker for the truth. Diotrephes, who shut it, has not seen God. Demetrius, who is well spoken of by everyone, has the truth itself agreeing with him. No sermons are recorded. No theology is argued. The measure taken of each of them is what he did about welcoming people, and whether his life and the truth tell the same story.

Then the letter ends the way the other one did, and it is one of the most human closings in the New Testament. “I have many things to write to you, but I would prefer not to do so with pen and ink.” He is at the bottom of his sheet, and he is also saying something all of us know. There are things that should not be handled at arm’s length. Some matters need a room and a face, and the man who tries to settle them by correspondence usually makes them worse. So he saves it. “Instead, I hope to see you soon and speak with you face to face.” The Greek is nearly mouth to mouth, close enough to speak quietly. Then, “Peace to you,” which is the old Hebrew blessing coming out of a Greek pen, the whole wish for a life at rest under God. “The friends here send you greetings.” Not the congregation, not the brethren; he calls them the friends, which is the ordinary word for people you actually like being with, and it is the last thing you would expect at the close of a letter that has just described a church fight. And then the final line, which is perhaps my favorite sentence in the whole book: “Greet each of our friends there by name.”

By name. Not a general greeting to be read out to the group. He wants Gaius to go around and speak to each one individually, and to say the elder’s greeting into that person’s face. In a letter about a man who loved to be first, the last instruction is to make sure that nobody is a nameless part of a crowd. That is how the church of God is supposed to work, and it costs nothing but attention.